ALEC SOTH [Dog Days, Bogotá] and [Niagara]

ALEC SOTH07 16 - 08 29 2009

I M ART is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of Alec Soth, a member of Magnum Photos, in Korea from July 16 till August 29. Born and based in Minneapolis, he has received several major fellowships from the McKnight and Jerome Foundations and was awarded the 2003 Santa Fe Prize for Photography.

In succession to the American Street Photography, which is rooted in the tradition of Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Stephan Shore and William Eggleston, Soth is recognized as one of the most talented photographer in the contemporary art scene. He captures the extraordinary by exposing and utilizing the vernacular of the ordinary. For Soth, photography is a medium that connects the fictitious space in his imagination with the reality. The repeated acts of searching for the subjects and the slow process involved with using an 8x10 view camera is a performance of his encounter with the world.

I M ART features thirty-three photographs from two acclaimed bodies of work, [Dog Days, Bogotá] and [Niagara]. These photographs that have captured Bogotá, the capital of Columbia and the Niagara Falls does not depict its geographical features or the life of people living there but portrays his own personal interpretation of the place and presents the connections that are formed among the subjects and his surroundings. In the portraits, the landscapes and the everyday scenes in his works coexist both melancholic and optimistic atmosphere reflecting the artist's introspective insight.

Working over the course of two years on both the American and Canadian sides of the Falls, [Niagara] is less about natural wonder than human desire and romance of the people residing around the place depicted through selection of images including newlyweds, naked lovers, love letters, motel parking lots and pawnshop wedding rings. [Dog Days, Bogotá] was carried out while Soth travelled Columbia with his wife to adopt a baby girl in 2002. They were put together in a book for his adopted daughter. He expresses the beauty of ramshackle architecture, its tranquillity and the perseverance of the human spirit, which cannot be felt in the modern capitalistic society.

Soth has participated in the 26th Bienale de Sao Paulo and Whitney Biennale in 2004 and his works have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions at the Des Moines Art Centre, Haus der Kunst in Munich, the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, Jeu de Paume in Paris and recently he has shown his works at Fotomuseum Winterthur in Germany. Moreover, his work is represented in major public and private collections, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.